


Deserve What You Get

by pasteur



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 15 Days of FatT 2018, snitch nightly did nothing wrong
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 01:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13753065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasteur/pseuds/pasteur
Summary: Rebecca pays a not-quite-old not-quite-friend a visit.





	Deserve What You Get

Snitch, as always, seemed to be reaching for something out of his grasp.

Rebecca could tell because his feet were just barely connected to the ladder rung, his body precariously balancing in the space between shelf and floor. He clawed after a loose wooden nozzle roughly the size of a potato, batting it in a loose circle without being able to secure a grip with his outstretched hand.

"Snitch!" she admonished, and with a jolt he sprung up like a startled hare and for a moment, time seemed to slow. Footless, supportless, he scrabbled for purchase on the shelf with just his arms, fruitlessly flailing with desperation more than panic. As the shelf began to wobble, his body arced backwards, eyes locking on to the lance noble's, and with an uneasy grace he floated in midair for a long, held breath. Four seconds later would be a body broken on the floor. Unnecessary, Rebecca's mind knew, as her body swept into action and she caught the falling scoundrel in both arms.

"Hey. Uh. Thanks." Snitch looked earnest, but his shit-eating grin was still too much for her to bear, and she dropped him like a brick on the wooden floor.

"Slow news day?" she asked, making her way to the kitchen to pour herself a drink.

"The News is, uh... closed for re-con-fig-ur-ation this week." Snitch pulled himself together and up from the floor with every prolonged syllable.

"You know that - you know that excuse won't hold up, right? Our new lord alive and well doesn't hold stock for that, and even if he did how would you be on the list? Or even know about it in advance? Or think you deserve such an honor?"

"Deserve? Well, I mean, I certainly don't know if I'm _that_  right honorable enough, but I'm alright enough that - I'm getting away from myself. It's not that kind of re-con-figuring, it's more of... a new business approach. New ideas, new cata-lysts, new rumbles, new scrums, you know?"

"No, Snitch. I can't help but be glad that I thoroughly do not." By this point, she had poured him a second drink.

"Well, let's just say I have some time to, ah, kill, you know, at least, while there's still daylight. To, uh, burn." He wiped his mouth with the back of a grimy sleeve before taking a sip with a loud, satisfying sigh.

Rebecca gestured to the oddly ordered piles of what seemed to be sailing ephemera. "What are you doing with all this... stuff?" She was putting it lightly, and barely covering her scorn. "Going for a pleasure cruise? Going to be the new ferryman?"

"Oh, if you need things in and out of Marielda, you know I'm among the best." He looked at her expectantly. She did not return his easy grin. "What? Whaaaat? Come on, you've got to give that one to me. No? Anyways, this isn't for the water, it's a -"

He was interrupted by a loud crash outside in the street. A shared look later and Rebecca and Snitch were both out the door, cane and sap in hand respectively. What they saw, neither of them could have expected, as the uncanny figure of a cobbin in what might have been a smart, fur-trimmed green suit stood smoking, but largely unhurt, while the remains of a barrel were scattered across the lane, decorating the shrubberies with wood and iron and the cobblestones with a mosaic of soot.

"Audrey? Are you okay?" Snitch rushed over and bent at the waist to try and brush some of the soot off of her suit, to largely no avail.

Aubrey grimaced at his attention. "I'm fine, Snitch, but I told you those barrels aren't going to be secure enough. You need to line them with lead or this is going to happen when you're mid-"

"Ah, ha, that's enough, come on inside, let's get you washed up."

Snitch cut her off and ushered her inside like a caricature of a gentleman while Rebecca studied the scene in the street. Some sort of... the scent of fish oil, surely, but that wasn't uncommon even up here in the canopy. A new type of alchemy? That cobbin seemed familiar, but she didn't know one named Audrey, and it had been hard to make out the finer details under the explosion's residue. Black soot... oh! Why she came here in the first place!

"Snitch!" Rebecca called, leaning in through the open door. "I stopped in for a reason, you know!"

Snitch called back from the back of the workshop, where a washbasin and a set of blueprints commanded equal halves of his and the cobbin's attentions. "What is it, my dear-good-friend?"

"You told me you had the perfect outfit for my date. And... well. It's tonight?"

Snitch split the distance in a heartbeat with a heartfelt grin wide and toothful. "Tonight! She said yes? Or... you said yes?"

Rebecca blushed, looked away, stepped into the room, and closed the front door behind her. "It's... it's supposed to be nice, and I haven't been out in a long long time."

"Don't you fret. Together, we'll be able to make you stunning." Snitch scratched under his ear and looked her up and down. "Audrey, do you think you could help me tailor something special on the quick?"

Aubrey sighed. "Yes. Practically all I do these days when I'm not running _errands_ _._  But..." She joined Snitch in studying the lance noble. She turned back to Snitch. "What do you have in mind?" Snitch's grin grew even wider, an idea clearly birthed and ready to spring forth. He ran back to the blueprints and pulled a series of sketches from inside the stack. Aubrey nodded, pulling a pencil and a compass out from an inside pocket. "This we can do. Lance Noble Orchid... Rebecca, was it?"

Rebecca nodded, more sheepish than usual.

Aubrey flashed her a smile. "Don't worry, you're in good hands. Get ready."


End file.
